The Next Life

The Museum of Arts and Design in New York has a specific focus to explore the intersection of art, craft and design in contemporary visual arts from 1945 to the present day. Moreover, the Museum focuses on how contemporary artistic creativity can transform materials ‘through processes ranging from the handmade to cutting-edge technologies’. So, their recent exhibition, entitled ‘Second Lives: remixing the ordinary’ in which selected artists have transformed discarded, everyday or ‘valueless’ objects into works of art, is a perfect example of their ethos and direction.
The works are impressive, using strong evocative imagery and symbolism to stimulate thoughts about sustainability, but also function, value and identity. Furthermore, although the common ground between the works is the re-purposing of discarded objects it is also the focus on craft and design, as can be seen in the intricate construction of the works.
What I find particularly interesting is that this exhibition focuses on the interstice between the realms of art, craft and design, which are usually held apart by a narrow focus; and so this exhibition is also a statement about the role of the artist, in that it highlights the potential of the creative mind to not only make connections between phenomena but also how art ‘products’ are placed in the chain of production by merging design and politics.
One interesting example is Tara Donovan’s piece ‘Bluffs’; a sculpture that resembles a coral or seaweed of some description, made from translucent shirt buttons intricately glued together to form the life-like piece, which shimmers in the light and appears almost animated. What I like about this piece is that to me it points to the idea that humanity is the only living thing on the planet that doesn’t give everything back to the circle of life – ours ends with industry. So, the juxtapose of shirt buttons (a mass-produced industry product) and coral (an essential aspect of the earths ecology which is gradually dying every day as a result of climate change) speaks volumes about both the role of industry in climate change and the role of the artist, who’s work is but a thought-provoking image to be toured around the open-prison that is the gallery system like a thought frozen in the political cycle. I'd love to read the essays by curators David McFadden and Lowery Sims and the artist statements and biographies but I can't afford the $75 plus shipping costs ($9.50) for the catalogue.
I can’t ignore the fact that my work and ideas are similar to the works in this exhibition, in that I too am re-purposing/up-cycling discarded objects; but there are a few significant differences. Firstly, my work is less focussed on making a statement about sustainability and more about the interactions that result as part of my process – collecting objects, meeting new people, involving them in the art work, the meetings between people and the event at which they meet. In this way I am interested in the possibility of creating connections within the Colchester community but specifically in a way that stimulates thoughts about community, consumerism and industry and the role of creativity and art in our lives. Moreover, by laying bare my entire thought process in the pages of this blog and the diaries of my work I am attempting to make this work understandable and open to feedback and criticism from anyone at any time – which I intend to take on board and assimilate into my art where possible, which I believe makes my work more democratic and hopefully will inspire others to flex their creative and intellectual muscles. I hope also that this opportunity for interaction with my audience will allow my work to go further than the gallery system into the social and cultural ether of the community at large. I’m not suggesting that any of the works in Second Lives don’t do this through the stimulation of debate but, as my work is focussed at community level, I feel that the immediacy of this interaction could be more potent.


Secondly, I am also interested in Marx’s notions of ‘exchange value’ and ‘abstract labour’, which brings into question where the value lies in the art work. Is the value to be found in the intricate nature of the labour – the process of creating the art works through an obvious display of craftsmanship (the abstract labour); or is the value to be found in the aesthetic of the art object and its sublime nature – the thought provoking aspect? The art works created for the second lives exhibition do display aspects of craft and design but their true value is in their sublime nature and the meaning they inject back into discarded materials because it’s this added feature which takes an object/product and makes it politically significant.
I also want to focus on aspects of the objects to provoke thoughts, but not about global issues per se. The objects may inspire me in ways that I want to remain open to. I may, for example, re-use an object for its original purpose but in a way that provokes thought. An example of this might be my wooden pencil case, which at present I am considering restoring, utilising antique restoration techniques, to create a wooden pencil box who’s beauty is so resonant that it outweighs its function – suggesting the connection between value and beauty but also between austerity and sustainability. However, I may decide to work with aspects of the pencil box related to its physical properties, such as the imperial measurement scale on its ruler, or the name inscribed on the front by the young girl who carried it to school everyday in the 1960’s, when consumer culture accelerated. Or I may use all of these aspects to make a comment about sustainable communities and the importance of the education system in our economy and the place of the arts within this system and or community regeneration schemes – afterall, every generation regenerates!